Dutch-born Chantal Acda, who is now based in Belgium, has been making music under the name Sleepingdog since 2006. Between 2006 and 2011, she released three albums under this moniker, culminating in With Our Heads in the Clouds and Our Hearts in the Fields, a collaboration with Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid, A Winged Victory For The Sullen). Having earned her stripes in bands like Isbells, True Bypass, and Marble Sounds, Acda sought out like-minded musicians to create an album filled with freedom, intensity, and meaning. She found them in German pianist and producer Nils Frahm (Ólafur Arnalds, Woodkid), Icelandic cellist Gyða Valtysdóttir (Múm), and American multi-instrumentalists Peter Broderick (Efterklang) and Shahzad Ismaily (Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog). Following her first solo album, Let Your Hands Be My Guide (Gizeh Records, 2013), arrived The Sparkle In Our Flaws (2015) and Bounce Back (2017). Live at Jazz Middelheim (Glitterhouse), by Chantal and Bill Frisell, was released in 2018. Again in 2018 came out Nu Nog Even Niet, in which Acda sings the verses of the Dutch poet Lotte Dodion. In 2019, Chantal created Pūwawau, a musical theater performance for the Oerol Festival in the Netherlands, in collaboration with Valgeir Sigurðsson (Björk, Thom Yorke, Sigur Rós) and singers from the Dutch Chamber Choir. In 2021, Chantal released the album Saturday Moon( with Bill Frisell and Mimi and Alan Sparhawk, among many others). Her collaboration with Italian composer and pianist Bruno Bavota resulted in the album A Closer Distance, released in 2022 on Temporary Residence. Chantal Acda & The Atlantic Drifters‘ album Silently Held came out in 2024), featuring contributions from Bill Frisell, Thomas Morgan, Eric Thielemans, Shahzad Ismaily, Colin Stetson, Jozef Dumoulin, Niels Van Heertum, and Joachim Badenhorst. Chantal is also a member of the bands Distance, Light & Sky (with Chris Eckman of The Walkabouts and Eric Thielemans) and Isbells. On 19 September 2025, Chantal Acda will release her new album (on Starman Records): The Whale, a rougher and more rock-oriented project.

Kevin Wright is a unique figure in British pop music: his career has flourished with cult labels such as él, Cherry Red, Le Grand Magistery, Siesta, and more. In the late ’80s, under the name Always, he issued the exquisite Thames Valley Leather Club and Other Stories (él, 1988), a suite of literate miniatures that fit perfectly in that label’s eccentric constellation, and Looking For Mr Wright (Suburbs Of Hell 1990). Soon after, as Mr. Wright, he released a string of fragile albums across cult imprints such as Siesta and Le Grand Magistery (The Fancy Man, Le Grand Magistery 1997; Star Time, Le Grand Magistery 1998; Hello Is Anyone Out There?, Le Grand Magistery 2001 Metropolitan, Siesta 2004; Diary Of A Fool Series Two Records 2009). In the new millennium, under the guise of The Dreamers (with Sarah Nyberg Pergament) the cult indie folk record Day For Night (Friendly Noise 2007). His work with él Records, in particular, remains extraordinary, not only for its crisp production and cultivated sensibility, but also for the way it captured Wright’s nostalgic, intricate songwriting at its most intimate. Fast-forward to more recent years: under the moniker Hotel Artesia, Wright quietly released fourteen lo-fi pop tracks on YouTube between 2021 and 2023. These tracks, collected as Everywhere Alone, were lovingly assembled into a vinyl release in November 2024 by Honey Muffin Records, thanks to the support of Noah Wilson (aka Mr. Muffins), who felt these songs deserved a life beyond the obscurity of YouTube. Reissued on CD in 2025 by fabulous Brest-based label Too Good To Be True, the album was followed last week by the Something to Sing About EP, the eighth in the label’s 2025 EP series, featuring lush dream-pop textures, tight arrangements, and wistful lyrics typical of Wright’s unique style.

Blueboy were among the finest bands to emerge from the Sarah Records roster. Formed in Reading in the early ’90s by Keith Girdler and Paul Stewart after their time in Feverfew, the group was later joined by Mark Cousens (bass), Gemma Townley (cello, vocals), Harvey Williams (guitar), Lloyd Haggar -and, later, Martin Rose- (drums). Their debut, If Wishes Were Horses (1992, Sarah Records), distilled childhood nostalgia into just twenty-six minutes- what childhood might sound like, if it were an album, a dreamlike whisper amid jangly guitars, cello, and hushed voices. They followed with Unisex (1994), a quietly daring exploration of identity and emotion, still shimmering with fragile honesty. Their final record of the period, The Bank of England (1998, Shinkansen), felt like a farewell—gentle, bittersweet, and true. In all, they released eight 7-inches and three LPs on Sarah and Shinkansen. Keith Girdler’s passing in May 2007 seemed to close the story. Yet in 2024 Paul, Gemma, Mark and Martin reunited to play live and record new material. That year brought two singles (One and Deux), followed by a return to the stage—culminating in November, when they headlined Jakarta’s Joyland Festival before 10,000 fans alongside Air, St. Vincent and Bombay Bicycle Club. On September 5th they released A Life In Numbers, their first album in twenty-seven years.

Peaceful Faces is the singer-songwriter vehicle of multiinstrumentalist and composer Tree Palmedo, who also leads the instrumental unit Drinking Bird, and—as a trumpet player—has worked with Fleet Foxes, The World Is A Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, Office Culture, and others. Since transplanting from the genre-flouting indie-rock scene of Boston to NYC in 2018, Palmedo has gained increasing recognition for his ambitious work as bandleader of a six-or-more-piece live band, working in the hallowed post-Beatles songwriting tradition furthered by Elliott Smith, Harry Nilsson, Sufjan Stevens, and more. Inevitably, Peaceful Faces’s cinema-scale pop songs are built on disarmingly earnest lyrics, gorgeous brass and synth-orchestral instrumental sections, and triumphant vocal hooks that morph and grow in significance throughout the duration of the song. His lush debut album, Letters From Late Adolescence was out in 2020, followed, one year later, by the EP Staring at the Damage. In 2023 the sprawling second album, Sifting Through The Goo, Reaching For The Candlelight, came out. Without a Single Fight, Peaceful Faces’ new album, came out in June on Glamour Gowns and features production contributions from Nate Mendelsohn (Market, Katie von Schleicher, Frankie Cosmos, Office Culture) and Dylan McKinstry (Taylor Ashton). In shadowy vignettes, Without a Single Fight’s lyrics address loss, anxiety, aging, and righteous frustration with the empty cadences of modern life.